Same here, yesterday in the morning, my stand alone JTWS execution froze and I could not get out of 2 of my positions. They were NYSE stocks and couldn't get out for 20 minutes. One of them pierced my stop and I finished losing more than I had planned. I tried to find help with Interactive Help and they could not help me, they just kept giving me phone numbers.
This is what I hate about IB, it was their system failure fault and they dont even offer help to get you out of trouble. Interactive Help chat treated you as if they didnt care for your money. They just kept telling me: "system is down" and that was something I already knew.
If someone plans to open an account with Interactive Brokers, I would advise to start looking elsewhere. It is time for Interactive Brokers to raise commissions and use that money to train their support staff how to treat customers.
Def: if you are reading this, I know you work hard to keep a good level of service for IB customer through this forum, you seems to be the exeception, but if all IB representatives were like you, I am sure it will make a difference. It seems as if IB's trading hardware is underpowered and underperforming all the time. It is simply not reliable in all terms. I have heard a lot of horror stories from IB at different trading forums. For example: strange reappearing positions you never owned, stuck orders, execution confirmations never received, ECN lags, Intratradingday shutdown of execution platform to make an upgrade for 20 minutes, etc,etc.
For a sample just go here:
http://www.siliconinvestor.com/stocktalk/msg.gsp?msgid=15669028
If there were a broker with commissions as low as IB and better software/interface/customer service/execution speed, I will definitely switch.
hsanson